This invention relates to an electrical connector for an IC card incorporating therein integrated circuits for memorizing and processing various kinds of data, and more particularly to an improvement of an electrical connector for an IC card, which connector is incorporated in an IC card reader and has electric contacts actuated mechanically by an insertion of the IC card into the IC card reader.
The IC card for use in the electrical connector with which the present invention concerns is standardized in JIS (Japanese Industrial Standard) X6301 and X6303, and IC cards having external terminals are standardized in detail in ISO 7810 and 7816. When such an IC card is inserted into a predetermined reading position of a corresponding IC card reader, reading of stored data and writing of required data are performed with the aid of the IC card reader.
Such IC cards are worth using in a wide range such as electronic money or prepaid card. For example, they are utilized as ID cards or cards for paying for pay television watching. Moreover, with the recent development of the automatic paying and receiving system, they may be utilized for paying charges for traffic facilities and autonomous entities.
In order to facilitate the understanding of the invention, first an existing IC card will be explained referring to FIG. 1. An IC card 10 shown in FIG. 1 includes a location for receiving integrated circuits (IC) whose external connection terminals 12 are provided as printed circuits on the surface of the card. A reference numeral 14 designates a space for arranging various ornament design patterns or any information.
When the IC card 10 is inserted in the direction shown by an arrow 16 into a card reader so as to arrive at a predetermined position in the reader, an electrical connection is achieved between the external connection terminals 12 and the electric contacts 18 schematically shown in the drawing, that is, contacts of a connector for connecting the IC card to a reader, thereby performing the required information interchange. These arrangements have been known.
FIG. 7 is an exploded perspective view illustrating an electrical connector of the prior art for an IC card reader. A reference numeral 20 shows a connector assembly for the IC card in its entirety and a reference numeral 22 denotes a base plate for holding the connector fitted therein. The connector 20 is of a shape of two connected rectangles having two mounting portions 24 and 26. These shapes of the mounting portions are determined by way of trial for convenience, so that these shapes themselves are not significant. Six elastic contacts 18 in the form of a cantilever are contacts of the connector for the connection of the IC card and adapted to be in contact with the external connection terminals 12 of the IC card 10 in order to achieve the information interchange between the integrated circuits of the IC card and the IC card reader.
The mounting portion 26 is provided with an ON-OFF switching means of the connector for detecting the insertion of the IC card into the reader. This switching means includes a movable contact piece 28 having one end embedded in the mounting portion 26 when it was molded in order to support the contact piece 28 by the mounting portion 26, and a fixed contact piece 30 fixed to the mounting portion 26 and having one end embedded therein in the same manner as the movable contact piece 28. These contact pieces 28 and 30 have at their ends external terminals or connection pads 32 and 34, respectively. When the IC card is inserted into the connector, the movable contact piece 28 is urged downward from its position shown in FIG. 7 so as to contact the fixed contact piece 30 so that the switching means becomes in the ON-condition, thereby starting the required operations, such as various reading and writing or the like. Protrusions 36 are stoppers serving to determine the final position of the inserted IC card.
With the construction described above, however, the two connection pads 32 and 34 are arranged only in the left area A of the base plate 22 (seen in FIG. 7), with resulting low degree of freedom in layout of connection patterns by printed circuits. Moreover, the fixed connection piece is unsatisfactory with its mechanical strength due to its shape of cantilever.